City council wants to take a closer look at Request for Proposals (RFP) for trade services.

The proposals were brought before executive committee on Monday night.

The proposals were for one-year contracts for electrical, plumbing and HVAC, carpentry and millwright services.

City Manager Jim Puffalt said of the successful tenders, two were local companies and two were from Regina.

Putting forward out-of-town tenders immediately threw up red flags for council.

“I guess I was very surprised when I saw there were two Moose Jaw vendors and two Regina vendors as the low tenders or the low bid on the RFP because that certainly isn’t going to make us look very good in the eyes of our citizens,” McMann said.

Blais said the electrical, plumbing and millwright contracts could save the city $140,000.

He noted that the carpentry contract, which a Regina company got the successful bid, would be more expensive so no contract will be offered.

“It’s a better use of our funds to keep that in-house, so there is only one coming from Regina and it’s probably the one that has the least amount of value to it,” Blais said.

Coun. Brian Swanson made the motion to table it until another executive committee meeting. He said he’d like to see more information before making a decision on an out-of-town tender.

“I’d like to know more before I stick my neck out to get it chopped off that we are awarding something like this out-of-town. I want to be able to defend that,” Swanson said.

The motion passed 4-2 with Coun. Dawn Luhning and Mayor Fraser Tolmie opposed. Coun. Chris Warren recused himself due to a potential conflict of interest.